


how about we run it all through again?

by poppiesandsunflowers



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Flashfam, Gore, Time Travel, my agenda is flashfam superiority, weird pretentious symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 18:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppiesandsunflowers/pseuds/poppiesandsunflowers
Summary: And on the subject of time travel, Wally West had only this to say: don't.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Wally West, Bart Allen & Wally West, Iris West & Wally West, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	how about we run it all through again?

**Author's Note:**

> me writing this: i don't know do you think this sounds weird?  
> my fucking gremlin mind: add another tricolon that'll fix it

“What do you want to be when you’re older?” Uncle Barry asks, on a cold spring morning just shy of daybreak. His legs are swung over a wooden bridge, and he’s leaning against the railing, shoulders set low and eyes bright on a vantage point far off from where they’re sitting. 

The early light is dim on his red costume, turning it into a muted, softened shade of burgundy. His cowl is laid bunched on the back of his neck, and he’s got a strip of sauce smeared across his left cheek from when they’d gotten some hamburgers earlier. Wally’s not going to say anything about that though; it’s funny. 

He looks old and there’s a wrinkle smoothed over on his brow, a healing red scab on the side of his forehead. His hair’s growing back in from his customary buzzcut and he looks almost young, almost like a stranger. He looks kind of familiar. 

Wally shrugs, reaching down for his boots. He pulls them off with a grunt, flipping them over to let a trail of dirty water siphon out to the dried canal below. “Uh, a scientist, I guess,” he says, not really paying attention. It’s warm out today. 

He gives the boots one last shake before placing them beside him on the bridge. They leave wet indents in the wood. 

“What kind?”

“I don’t know. Probably something to do with chemistry. I’m good at that kind of stuff.”

Uncle Barry’s still looking out towards the distance, but from the corner of his eye, Wally can see a sharp flicker of emotion. Wally’s leg twitches. 

They’re sat in a park twenty miles east-side of Central City, forested away in an escape of crawling green vines and dilapidated buildings. The leaves are tipped brown and drooping slightly, and there’s no water, no nothing in the stream below them. The man-made markers have all but been eaten away by the sprawling vegetation. 

The only movement here is the two of them. Side-by-side and perched atop a molding overpass, waiting for the sun to rise. It’s uneasy to sit here; what with his surroundings so eerily unmoving and inert when Wally’s entire life revolves around doing, around the very opposite of that. 

No one’s been here in years. Perhaps even decades. The wild, ungroomed nature spells a quiet type of surreality around them. Wally’s not sure he likes it. 

With an absent hum, Uncle Barry leans back, bracing himself on the palms of his outstretched arms. He rolls his shoulders, stifling a groan when something pops, and for the first time since they’ve arrived, turns to look at Wally. 

There’s a foreign expression on his face. 

“But, do you have something you really, really want to do?” he asks. His voice has gained a whimsical quality to it, strange and distorted, pressing gingerly against the vowels; an alien accent he’s never heard the likeness to. Like fog clustered tight into itself, a furling mass of a system in motion. Peculiar. 

Still:

_ I want to be a hero _ , Wally thinks, and it’s a thought he’s had for eons and eons now. Years and years and years. It’ll always be there, clustered in the background of his thoughts; a mantra, an undying dream. Most likely, it’ll be there when he dies.  _ I want to be a hero.  _

_ I want to be like you _ . 

“Not really,” Wally says instead. That admission seems like too much to say out loud in the lulling peace.

Wally shakes his head. He clicks his jaw to the side with an audible pop and braces his elbows down onto the bridge, sloping against it as he tilts his head up towards the sky. 

Right now, it’s still dark out. The clouds are flattened and wispy against the horizon’s purpling hue, spread thin to let spots of light filter on by and below. His body aches and it feels like he’s been out for hours now, running and running and...well, running. 

Wally’s wearing his uniform. It’s dirtied a bit, crusted over with dried mud and speckles of unearthed dirt. Yet oddly enough, none of the debris had touched over to the red coloring of his costume. The grime limits itself to the base yellow: a color that seems too gaudy and childish in comparison to everything else. 

Wally wipes a hand over the dirt and smears it on the bridge. He feels a little more self-contained once he does so. 

“You should have something to strive for,” says Uncle Barry. His voice is louder, surer, losing itself of its hazy, almost mangled tone. “A goal . Something like that. What is it?”

“You sound kinda off, Uncle Barry,” Wally says, tilting his head slightly. “I mean, I’m twelve. I have plenty of time to decide what I want to be when I grow up.” 

Uncle Barry nods, nods again, and sighs, deep from his chest. His fingernails scratch a thin stripe up his arm, and he’s leaning on just one arm now, quiet as his eyes slide right off of Wally--and instead, towards nonsensical points in the faint distance, his eyes darting, scampering; glimmering so suddenly and strangely in the sun. 

In this lighting, his costume is turning into a darker shade of red. 

“Is it just me,” Uncle Barry begins, and this time his voice is low and whimsical, stuck on a musing, unidentifiable sort of grief. “But does this all seem familiar to you?”

“What do you mean?” Wally presses. 

Uncle Barry frowns. “Just...deja vu. That fight with the Weather Wizard earlier. I’ve done it all before. It had the same steps, the same routine. I feel like I did it all before. Just.. .” He trails off. He doesn't seem to have the right words for it. 

Absentmindedly, Wally’s fingers curve in between the ledges of the bridge, poking down and around the narrow spaces. There’s a haze over his thoughts and he doesn’t want to answer the question. 

Regardless, Wally opens his mouth to speak. 

“We~ll,” he begins, tongue curving on a high note, “you’ve been a superhero for like, ages now. Right?”

“Right,” Barry mutters. He’s tapping a frantic rhythm on the bridge.  _ Tik-tik-tik-tik--------tik tik tik--- _

“So, that’s probably it. Since you’ve fought for a long time, you’ve gotten used to it, so now, it’s all like rinse and repeat, it doesn't even bother you.”

There’s no water in the river below and all around them, the weeds are overgrown, ravenous; feasting away at the moisture in the air like they’re starved, desperate and clawing, the stems willowy and deadened and gnawed open, black and blistering in the heat. 

It’s surreal. It’s dreamlike, it’s like closing your eyes and seeing nothing but gray static. There’s a film over it. Uncle Barry taps out a rhythm on the bridge and looks at him with a pained, hopeless expression marred over his face. Wally doesn’t know why. 

...It’s been a couple of minutes. By now, the wet imprints of his shoes on the bridge have dried up. 

“I see,” Uncle Barry says weakly. He seems almost to slump, and once more his eyes linger on that point on the horizon, that far, far off point. The sun is reflected golden and vivid against him. “You’re right. Just...does...does this at all seem familiar to you?”

They’re sitting on a bridge. Wally’s looking at the clouds and thinking to himself a dozen different things in a span of a millisecond. He thinks that he’s never been here before, to such a wild place, and he thinks that he doesn’t like it. 

No. He  _ knows  _ that he doesn’t like it. 

He thinks that he should go somewhere else. Somewhere quieter than this. His legs urge him to get up, to run, to do something. He needs to move so badly it hurts; as if it was a physical sensation tearing him apart. As if it was burning him, inside-outside outside-in. 

And it’s just so, so tempting to run. 

_ I want to be a hero— _

“No,” Wally answers, and his tone is steady and sure. 

“Everything seems new to me.”

* * *

Wally jolts out of his head just in time for the explosion to hit. The wall rips outwards; rubble and debris and pulverized stone shooting out towards him in a rush of heat, dust shelling the air, his ears shrieking with white, booming noise as the whole world seems to flatline. 

It’s all his brain can do but to reboot, thoughts discarded and reimagined in the moment it takes for him to shut his eyes against it all, and with a violent cough, he blinks away the soot as everything resettles. 

There’s still something ringing, ever louder and louder in his mind before it all falls away to a quiet, unsettling hush. A millisecond later, he has a hand up to his ears, grimacing as he palms at the warmth trailing down from the side of his head. His fingers come back red. 

Blood. Never a good sign after an explosion. 

He’s in Metropolis. Wally knows it as a shining spectacle of a city: its skyscrapers gleaming beacons, the weather always sunny. It’s the very paragon of the good old American dream. Today, the alien invasion has rendered it down to its bones.

The epicenter of the attack is mere concrete. It’s just dented steel and the flimsy exoskeletons of razed buildings and acrid smoke. And Wally’s in the middle of it all, thanking his lucky stars that he hasn’t dropped dead through exhaustion yet. 

The keyword being  _ yet _ . There’s always the next second to get through, and then the next, and then the next. 

And the worst part--Wally muses, time having slowed down to a snail’s pace as he forces his body to knit itself back together--is that it smells of war. It always does in these end-of-the-world scenarios, like piss and metal and guts and a dozen other horrible smells. The heat of the sun only ever serves to make it more pungent and memorable. 

With another rattling cough, the clock starts moving normally again. The seconds rewrite themselves and Wally winces, the small of his back spasming like a motherfucker. His leg is twitching painfully and when Wally chances a look, the bone is jabbed crookedly out from the skin. 

“Fuck,” Wally mutters. He shifts his leg slightly, strangling a hiss of pain between his teeth as the sensation blinds him stupid. Blood oozes out of the wound, and the muscle surrounding it is punctured and mashed up, bits of gore plastered onto the sides of his costume and splattered gruesomely onto the stone beneath him. 

“Oh, that’s fucking disgusting,” Wally says to himself. Absently, he wonders if he should poke at it. Then, he starts coughing again. 

When she was younger, Joan Garrick had been a WW2 battlefield nurse. Years down the line, she was one of the only people alive equipped to teach the newly dubbed Kid Flash the mechanics of Speedster healing, and the only one who’d let him practice first-aid on something other than dummies. Mainly, himself. 

First aid, needless to say, is not his passion. But the lessons meant that Wally knows how to set a broken bone correctly. It also meant that he knows that he only had a matter of minutes to fix his positioning before his leg healed wrong and he’d have to rebreak it. 

Finally, it meant that Wally was to bite down on his tongue, try not to scream, and remember Joan’s patient voice telling him to grow a spine and to snap the bone in place already; before she did it for him. Again. 

So with a burgeoning sense of dread, Wally shrugs off the tops layer of his suit--gloves, his costume does not have, and he knows enough about infection to recognize that it would be a horrendously bad idea to handle his leg in blood and grime covered fabric--tugs both arms out into the air and gently, very gently, places his hands where the split is. 

“Oh please, let this be over quickly,” Wally begs, and before he can regret his decision, snaps the bone in line. A torturous pulse of pain slams into his leg and Wally’s slumping over with his eyes screwed shut before he even knows what he’s doing, forcing down a truly pitiful whine to the back of his throat. 

Tears smear his vision and he’s choking down a garbled swear, clutching his arm in an effort not to grip at his injured leg instead. His nails draw pinpricks of blood and the whole thing, this whole damn thing, feels like way too much, like way too much. 

It’s just lights, and smells, and sensations. Overlapping. Flashes, glimpses, moments coming by too quick to count, stinging, stinging, harsh and excruciating. His hands are shaking.

There’s ozone in the air like a coming storm. 

The only coherent thought he has is that he desperately wants to go home. It’s a want that hurts so, so damn bad, that it’s like a punch in the gut. 

After that, Wally doesn’t know how long time moves for. It could be hours, days, seconds--and his mind would still be processing, cataloging; trying to reconfigure itself from the shock. He’s in a haze where the only thing he can think of are equations, chemicals, patterns upon patterns intersecting themselves because that’s all his powers seem to be at times.  Clinical. Painful. Synonyms of the two. 

Timely.

When he blinks back into himself, the skin of his leg is smooth and unscarred, the twitch on his back barely noticeable. There’s a black hole where his stomach should be and Wally’s ready to eat an entire restaurant, nevermind a single horse.

Noticeably, the position of the sun hasn’t moved much, if at all. Wally wonders how much time has passed since the explosion hit. 

From his hip, his JL communicator crackles, a mutated, rusted voice calling his name. 

“-ash, come in, Flash, come in. I repeat, Fl--”

Wally flips it over. “I’m here,” he croaks.

“--ere are y---------need assistance----down on 91st street--”

“I’ll be there.”

Wally flips it closed. He stands, stumbling like a newborn calf, a hand on a crumbled wall to hold him steady. The debris, the soot, the heat; it’s all another weight on his shoulders, dirtying them gray and burnt. His fingers dig into the wall and parts of it crumble to the ground. 

This is a familiar feeling. A familiar moment. 

“Okay,” he says, and it’s kind of a promise, one half of an unfinished benediction. “Later. You’ll deal with this...later.”

His fingers curl deeper into the wall and a moment later, his suit’s over his shoulders again, cowl in place. He reaches 91st street with a skidding stop and seconds to spare. 

The walls are head-to-toe in bullet holes and scorched with the after-effects of plasma rays, the sullen, solitary gusts of wind adorned with stale, putrid air. Further down the street is where the action’s really at; with a goliath of an alien roaring up into the sky, two sets of arms raised and belly glowing black and grim. 

Wally’s just in time to see Wonder Woman stab it in the gut, and then get thrown into an adjacent building with a thundering crash of glass. Wally winces in sympathy. 

Windows are always hell on your back. 

“You’re late,” comes a voice. Wally looks up and spots Kyle grinning above him, green construct at the ready and his ring glowing like a lighthouse. Somehow, it doesn’t take much effort to smile back at him. 

“Sorry. What do I need to know?” Wally asks. He knows the drill. Not much time for pleasantries in these types of scenarios. It’s hit, run, and then pass the fuck out. Kind of like clockwork. 

“Well from the looks of it, he’s immune to blunt force,” Kyle answers. 

“He’s a he?”

“That’s what the ring says.”

“Would the ring happen to have any other information?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.”

There’s a sound like a wind-up toy, and then a blast of dark light sails over Wally’s head, barely avoiding hitting Kyle’s leg. The building it lands on gets pulverized into a crisp. 

“So,” Kyle says tightly, “any ideas?”

“Nope,” Wally quips, stretching his arm over his head, lightning building up around him into snapping tendrils as he settles into a runner’s stance, maddened grin at the ready. “I think I’ll wing it.”

“Oh, that’s always good to hear,” says Kyle, and then, they’re off. 

From the corner of his vision, there’s a splash of dark burgundy, a strand of blue lightning trailing from his limbs. Wally, for whatever reason, starts to laugh. 

And at the end of the day, they’ve once more won the world. 

* * *

The first inklings of something having gone wrong come to him, of all places, in the men’s bathroom of a police precinct. 

Wally’s twenty-seven--getting on with his years--and he works as a forensic scientist. He works a job he doesn’t like, and he hates it here, if only passively because it’s the same thing over and over and over again. 

Pour that in, pour that out, do this and do that and this and that. It’s so familiar, so overdone and it’s all repetition, the bad kind, the overworked kind. Like a pounding in his gut, like a dread building up...

It’s not him. Not  _ his _ . Often, it feels like he’s stolen something vital from someone else. And he wonders at that, frequently and with no small amount of grief. 

The lab coat is slim on him. The white fabric is bunched up to his elbows, sliding off the contour of his shoulders, dragging on the back of his knees. He looks like a little kid playing dress-up, tooth-gapped and smiling with all his gums. The coat looks wrong, looks like it was made for someone bulkier, someone with less of a runner’s build than him. 

_ (Someone like Ba---) _

But still, the lab coat has his name on it. It’s his. 

Wally scratches his chin. His nails scrape against stubble. All of the stalls are open and the door to the outside is locked and it’s all clean, it’s all sanitary. Just a minute before Wally had washed his hands with soap and water, dried them out with a paper towel, stood still in a way he doesn’t know how to explain properly. 

Standard, everyday, no deviations. Pattern, pattern, repetition. 

Of course, it doesn’t end like that. Something’s got to give, something’s got to break apart; has to, after so many loops and rewinds and resets.  _ (wait what does that mean i don’t understand what’s happening please)  _

So, he looks in the mirror. The first time he’s done so this timeline, but he doesn't know that, not really. Simply, it feels unfamiliar. 

...It feels overdue. 

Above him, the lights are bright and heavy. They turn his hair into a vivid, unnatural red--shining oddly like the dim reflection off of apple skin. Waxy; inhuman almost. His shape is hunched and horrid, he’s got a curved back--and damn it he really needs to exercise more, maybe go running, it’ll be good from him--and there’s…

Huh. That’s new. 

There’s something over his eye. An odd sensation to it, like it’s familiar and not at the same time. When his fingers pad over it, he recognizes the roughened texture of a scar; scabbed-over and colored an unpleasant gray-white. Old, aging. 

He scratches at his chin again. Prods over the outline of the scar. It’s jagged, bumpy, yet at certain places smooth to the touch. It curls around the expanse of his ear, to the highpoint of his brow bone, all the way to the corner of his lips; as if in a smothering kiss. 

He can’t see out of that eye. And as soon as he realizes it, the world twists, tumbles, everything moves ever-so-slightly and strangely. Little to the left. To the right. Depth perception is a thing, isn’t it? Should be. Must be why the world's suddenly out of focus. 

In the mirror, his face is lopsided, the scar tugging his cheeks taught, plastic and shiny. 

Wally reaches out. Index and pointer fingers are raised to the image, his white coat unraveling to pool uncomfortably over his skeletal wrists. He reaches out and he’s leaning too far in, too far out, desperately curious despite himself. He doesn't remember that being there. 

Wally stumbles. With a muffled curse, his hands steady himself on the sink. He realizes that he’s trembling. 

“What the fuck,” he whispers, and his hands are gripping tightly on the edges of the sink. Clean, sterile, repetition. His legs hurt. There’s a pattern there. Clean, sterile--

“What the fuck.”

Wally’s twenty-seven. Kind of old, according to the internet. Fading into obscurity. The most interesting fact about him was that he was younger--twelve, to be exact--a chemical spill burnt his face; blinding one eye and scarring him to hell and back. He lost all feeling in his right arm. 

He remembers that night in detail. Result of trauma, say the doctors. He remembers his Uncle leaning over him, hands hovering above Wally’s prone form, panicked and crying into the phone. “Help,” he remembers him warbling, “help, please,” and it’d been a summer night, a summer storm heralding over that night. 

Above him, there had been a splinter of lightning crashing fitfully against the rolling clouds. Wally, his eyes wide, had stared up at the sky as he’d gasped down lungfuls of painful breath, thinking to himself that he was going to die here. Die to this, of all damned things, of all damned places. And he was young, and he was in middle school, and he didn't want to die and kept that thought to him like a lifeline. He didn't want to die. 

He remembers that. 

Wally’s legs hurt. He should probably sit down. Rest for a while. 

And Wally gets a feeling, one that’s sunk deep into his stomach, a crawling pit that ever-so-slowly chokes itself up his throat. He thinks that he might be remembering it wrong. That it’s a little to the right, or a little to the left; because he’s looking in the mirror and something feels... 

Something feels missing. 

_ (it is, you’re forgetting so much of yourself, of your character, i hope you remember soon) _

In actuality, Wally remembers looking up and seeing the sharp arc of lightning coiled above him; bright and white and electric. He remembers seeing the belt curl, bow against the wispy grain of the storm, everything frozen bar that one scene, that one recollection of terror. 

He remembers standing still as it crashed, dashing down ever faster and faster and  _ faster  _ towards Wally--screaming, scorching energy hurrying out from his ribcage to every miniscule atom of him; burning,  _ burning _ like hell--blazing red, hot, and fucking wild against him, muscles contracting until he couldn’t think, couldn’t even  _ move-- _

And he had fallen; back into a flimsy shelf of different-sized beakers and safety goggles and dangerous, unknown chemicals. The containers had shattered against the knobs of his spine and it had hurt, of course it goddamn had, and the lightning had only seemed to magnify, the pain crescendoing, crescendo **in** g,  _ crescen _ **doin** _ g _ . 

It hadn’t been his Uncle crying, it’d been him: curled up on the floor and gasping for breath in between the currents of electricity tracing themselves down his limbs. There’d been a trail of something vicious and surging trickling down from the ridge of his forehead all the way down to his open mouth, tasting like copper, blood. 

And here’s how he knows it’s not a dream: because the second the pain had ebbed, a tingling sensation of something  _ other  _ had curled in between the spaces of his chest. A feeling so unmistakably familiar, grabbing, and wreathing; that it’d felt like coming home. 

It’s the same sensation as now, looking in the mirror and breathing in, breathing out, hands shaking on the sink. It all seems so familiar. He’s done this all before. Repetition repetition repetition. Over and over again, stuck in a loop he hadn't even been aware of.

Christ, he’s done this all before. 

When he blinks, he’s looking at the body of a twelve year old boy. Smiling with all his teeth, hair red as blood, fingers splayed wide across the mirror, dressed in a lab coat that doesn’t fit him. 

The fabric has the name Barry Allen written on it. 

Wally sucks in a gasp. “No,” he says, pleading. “No, I’m--I lived through this already. I’m--I’m--” 

His fingers fly to the scar on his eye. 

“I’m not supposed to be here--!”

* * *

“So. Time travel.”

Barry grins. His legs are swung over the wooden bridge, and he’s leaning against the railing, clear-eyed with a welcome, overjoyed glint to him. Against the light background, his costume is a cheerful and bright and childish red. On his cheek, there’s still a faint pinprick of sauce from where it’d been hastily wiped away.

Wally’s not going to say anything about that though. It’s funny. 

“Took you a while,” Barry teases, but his tone is thankful, almost reverent in its quiet, relieved ease. “You’ve missed a lot; I should catch you up to speed.”

“That,” Wally remarks, “was one of your worst puns yet. I’m almost impressed. Have you been practicing?”

“I got that one from the internet actually.” 

Wally snorts. 

This time around, he’s twenty-seven again, and unbelievably happy to once more be in an adult body. He’d spent the last few timelines hanging out with the Titans, adjusting to...well. To this. To the mirrors and the dysphoria that comes with being twelve and--of course who could forget--the unwilling time travel he’s somehow managed to find himself in. 

He has no idea how long he’s been doing this for--his memories are still fading in and out with every switch, flashing so quickly it’s like they were never even there at all. It’s confusing, conflicting, almost cancerous in the way it eats away at him. 

This version of him has longer than usual hair. It curls up on the back of his neck in teasing ringlets, wet with rain and sweat. A sweet face, thin nose, gaunt cheeks, a runner’s build like always. Nothing too unusual. 

The only concern is that he’s too gangly, thin and bony in a way that speaks of starvation rather than leisure. He prods at his chest, feeling the starkness of his ribs jabbed against his red costume. Frowning, he turns a questioning look towards Barry. 

Barry seems to get the message immediately, judging by how he grimaces, folding his shoulders inward. The warmth leeches from his eyes, replaced by a cool, flinty look of aged rage. 

“This timeline has Velocity 9,” he explains tightly, his voice strained and low. Seemingly unable to help himself, he takes Wally’s bony wrist in both of his hands; his thumbs on the stumbling, speedster-fast pulse underneath them. “It wasn’t very... _ kind _ , I guess is the best word, to either of us.”

Wally rifles through the memories of this world, furrowing his eyebrows as the recollection draws a blank. He thinks it might have something to do with Vandal Savage and...the black market? That’s kind of ringing a bell but then again… 

“Wait, I did drugs?” 

The fingers on his wrist squeeze tighter. “Unwillingly. It’s probably for the best that you don’t remember it fully.” 

Wally blinks. Barry--looking seemingly impassive, but there’s a twitch on his cheek that speaks of leftover anger, a tapping, restless rhythm on Wally’s wrist that’s telling in and of itself--only grimaces further. He shakes his head, a silent request not to pry. 

“Alright,” Wally answers. There’s a fake bravado to his voice. Clearly, Barry hears it too because he hunches down, back drooping and his gaze dropping down to the streaming river below them. 

But, he doesn’t let go of Wally’s wrist. The world is silent and still, inert in a way that would rankle if he left it alone for too long. The sun is warm atop him. 

The two of them--after the Flash, the lightning, the  _ powers _ ...well, there hadn’t ever been much of a reason to keep secrets from each other. Speedsters weren’t like the Bats, who hoarded even the smallest gestures, the smallest affections; they were a different breed, more open and familial. 

So it wasn’t ever good when one of them kept their mouths shut. Wally wonders what had happened in this universe that had left Barry feeling so shaken but...he probably won’t ever know. If the memories haven’t come back to him by now, then they’re lost to the timestream. 

Not to mention, Barry won’t ever spill the dirty details out to his  _ kid _ . 

Wally scoots closer, nudging his leg into Barry’s. He leans over, wrapping his lanky arms around bulky shoulders, clingy in a way that he hasn’t been since he was a little kid and hoarding every single scrap of attention he could possibly find. Barry just huffs, and Wally spots the edges of a genuine smile on his face as he moves to hug him back. 

“Rascal,” Barry jokes, and his voice is tired and fond and familiar. Wally hasn’t heard its likeness in so long that he sniffles a bit, hiding his face in the crook of Barry’s neck. The man only hums and places a gentle hand on the back of his head. 

“You need a haircut,” he says, rolling a strand in between his fingers. 

“Maybe I like it this way,” Wally mumbles. 

“Maybe you’d look better with short hair.”

“I’m not letting a hairdresser near me.”

“Trust me, Iris would be happy to take a pair of scissors to that mop herself.”

“I’m not letting  _ Iris  _ near my hair either.”

“Hey, she does mine.”

Wally leans away slightly to look at Barry, eyeing the uneven patches of blonde hair dubiously. “All the more reason not to let her.” 

Barry doesn’t say anything to that. He just tightens his hold to push Wally closer again, unwilling to let go. The movement pushes Wally’s nose against the junction of his shoulder, smearing snot all over that part of the costume. Barry gives out a gurgle of disgust. 

He doesn’t loosen his grip, though. 

Wally has to shift then, trying to get into a position that’s actually comfortable. In the process, he bumps their knees together, folds his arms into his stomach, jimmies awkwardly and without any grace. It’s just funny enough that the motions send the both of them into a pitching fit of laughter. 

It’s juvenile and slightly hysterical and altogether pretty lame. But Wally feels lighter than he has since the very start of this whole mess, jamming an elbow into Barry’s side as the man giggles and holds him ever tighter. Barry’s messing up his hair, ribbing about the absolute state of it, and Wally’s whining and telling him that he’s not any better himself, has he looked in a mirror lately? 

There’s a shine in Barry’s eyes, a shakiness in his limbs and smile, that Wally pretends not to notice.

Barry doesn’t say that he’d missed him, even though it’s blatantly obvious that he had. Just the same, Wally doesn’t say anything about the dozens and dozens of timelines that he’s lived through, over and over and over again, even though he desperately wants to. 

Just...not right now. There’ll be time for that later. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Wally regained his memories and he wants to stay in this moment just for a little bit more, a little bit longer before he’s somewhere else again, somewhere terrifying or lonely or both at the same time. 

“Tell me how you’ve been,” says Barry after a while, and his voice is choked and teary. He’s still got Wally in a hug, looser now that some of the tension’s gone. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Wally leans the side of his head onto his chest. “I’m okay. Sorry it took so long to figure it out.” 

“Don’t worry about it. As far as I can tell, you’re the only one besides me who even has some inkling that something’s gone wrong.”

“Even Bart?” Wally frowns. “I know he’s never been in the Speedforce like us but--”

Barry shakes his head. “No. I checked, he didn’t remember anything. With you, I could tell you did, somewhat, but…” He sighs. “He just doesn’t have the experience necessary to recognize these sorts of things. I mean, he’s sixteen, it’s good that he doesn’t but…”

“It would’ve been a bit easier.”

“Yeah.” Barry starts to tap a rhythm onto Wally’s back. “It would've been. Just, you’ve been holding up alright?”

“I’ve been worse. I’ll feel better once this is all done and over with, you know? Go home to...”  Wally pauses. “Wait...am I married? In the original timeline, that is?”

Barry frowns. “I think so? I remember a wedding. To Dick, right?”

“Dick? I thought it was Linda.” Wally winces. “Oh, that’s awkward. When we get this all sorted out, don’t tell my spouse I didn’t know who they were.”

“So long as you don’t tell Hal I was married to him in some timelines.”

“Deal. We’ll take it to our graves.”

Barry pinches his back. Wally squawks indignantly. “No one’s dying,” Barry says sternly. “Now, do you remember how this was caused?”

Wally clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He snaps his fingers when the thought comes to him. “I’m pretty sure it was because of a supervillain. Professor Zoom, probably? Though I think he was calling himself the Reverse in that timeline. Can’t remember the exact details.”

“Then your memories match up with mine. I’ve tried all my ideas already; do you have any plans on how to fix this?”

Wally mulls it over. 

When he’d taken up the Flash mantle, he’d been the fastest man alive. Even now with Barry back in action, Wally knew that if he truly wanted to, he would be able to outpace him. Barry knew it too, had even congratulated him on the fact, beaming proudly when he’d found out. 

The crux of it was that while Barry spent years trapped in the Speedforce, he had come out of it with a good chunk of his memories missing, his legs shaking and a wild, savage glaze to his eyes, not fully aware of what was happening. 

Wally went into it and ran out that very same day, crackling in blue lightning with a smile that looked more like a snarl. In a way, he embodied it, more than any other speedster. Felt its weight, the overbearing presence, in a way no one else did, and hopefully never will again. 

It means he’s the best suited to use it. It means he knows more about it than anyone else alive. And so, t he solution shows itself clearly in his mind and it’s almost too simple of a solution. 

Wally kind of wants to throw up. 

“I think, if I went into the Speedforce, I should be able to set us onto a stable timeline,” Wally whispers quietly. He doesn’t want to think about it. “There’s no guarantee on what kind of universe we land on, but it’s a solution.”

Barry stills. When he speaks, his voice is low and level. “And...this is the only way?”

“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

Barry doesn’t say a word. It’s silent and hushed, uneasy in a way it had never been before.

Wally just wants to close his eyes and sleep for a while. Maybe, if they had more time, he would have been able to. 

“Alright,” Barry finally whispers. His tone is resigned. “Alright. Just...stay here for a bit. Don’t start to run just yet.”

“I won’t.”

Under them, the river is flowing. 

* * *

The next time Wally comes to himself, he’s laid to rest in an open coffin, choking down a mouthful of blood as his body caves into itself. 

There’s a yawning hole where his stomach should be, plunged inward and pitted open like a rotten peach. His intestines make a garland around the openings of the coffin and one of his arms is balanced limply out from its side, the other slick and viscous with his own innards. His hair is matted and wet, streaking red smudges onto his cheeks. 

Immediately, his hand spasms. He desperately tries to find purchase against the wood’s gloss as he suffocates in his own blood; retching and blinking back pained tears as the taste of copper pitches itself further and further down his throat. His scream is smothered into a waterlogged gurgle. 

Faintly, he can see the blue outline of lightning. It’s snapping around his stomach, prowling at the edges in static-y jumpiness, ever-so-slowly stitching himself closed. From afar, the electricity looks like a spider’s web, as overlapped and weaving as it is. Wally doesn't think it'll be enough to fix this in time. 

With a heaving, horrid press of his lungs, he sucks up all the blood in his mouth and spits it to the side of his head. It’s covered in a thin film of gray-white mucus. Wally only coughs out more and hopes his lungs fix themselves soon before he dies from suffocation instead of blood loss. 

In this body, he’s sixteen. Today’s his birthday and he’d just spent the last two weeks chained to a wall with Professor Zoom snarling over him, cruel-eyed and mad-mouthed. His birthday present is that he gets to die today; slowly and in a coffin because Zoom’s dramatic like that. 

Fucking asshole. 

Wally has to give a wheezing laugh at that. It’s kind of funny, given that he’s not even sure he  _ can  _ die while he’s stuck time traveling like this. Zoom has horrible timing, he thinks, and then cackles at the pun, causing a blood-splattered rib to puncture itself out of his chest. 

_ Ouch _ . 

Truthfully he’s too numbed up on adrenaline and instinct to take notice of the pain. He’s thankful for it too because his entire body looks like he just got slammed dunked by Superman and then stabbed for good measure; molting as he is yellowing bruises and scabbed over puncture wounds.

Really, the worst part is his leg. It’s mangled beyond repair; torn apart at the knee to leave only sawtoothed strips of skin hanging off the flesh. It’s kind of like the world’s worst birthday banner, only it also resembles the aftermath of a maggot having torn apart a leaf: all bumpy lines and sagging tissue draped over itself.

So. Pretty fucking revolting, to say the least. 

The panic always hits worse when it’s the leg. There’s always the feverish paranoia that this'll be the wound that’ll keep him still for good, keep him ground-ridden. But no matter how many times the craze comes around, it never comes to. At the end of the week, Wally’s running again. 

Thank god for speedster healing, is all he’s saying. 

Wally spits up another glob of blood. 

Outside, there’s the sound of a door opening. Wally blinks, popping his jaw. Footsteps scamper inside, and whoever the person is, they’re breathing heavily, shakily. They close the door shut with a screeching sound of metal on metal. Wally winces at it. 

Christ, can’t a dude die in peace? 

It seems that whoever the person is has spotted his coffin, judging by the sudden stillness of any noise. Wally debates groaning for the sheer fun of it, but figures that’s a touch too mean. They’re probably expecting a dead person, after all, not a semi-alive man currently stuck in the body of a teenager. 

The footsteps reach him. There’s a deep inhale, the mechanical click of a gun, and then the person leans over and he’s staring up at a glaring Iris Allen-West.

He doesn’t really register the gun aimed at his head. He’s looking at the woman who raised him with no small amount of astonishment, eyes darting on the details he’s forgotten over time. He hasn’t seen her since this whole mess started.

There are flecks of yellow in her eyes, narrowed and glacial, a small scar overtop her brow bone, smudged mascara at the top of her eyelids. Far from her usual neat appearance, flyaway strands of brown hair are plastered with sweat to her forehead, her clothes rumpled and blood-stained. Her fingers are poised perfectly over the trigger. 

As soon as she sees him, her eyes widen in shock, hands fumbling with the gun as she gasps and brings a palm to her open mouth. “Oh my god,” she whispers, pained and horrified. She falls to her knees, scooting closer to press her body against the coffin. “Oh my god,  _ Wally _ \--”

Her jaw wobbles. There’s a sheen over her eyes. 

“Hey,” Wally garbles, trying to smile and hoping his teeth aren’t stained too red. “Um. Long time no see. How’ve you been?”

Iris lets out a sob. Her hand flies to cradle his cheek, thumb brushing away splotches of drying blood. Her hold is painfully gentle and shaky, a special type of revenant. Wally closes his eyes and tries not to cry again. 

“Oh no no, don’t close your eyes, don’t you dare Wallace Rudolph West,” she chokes. “You aren’t dying just yet, you hear me? Open your eyes honey,  _ please _ .”

Wally complies. He has to squint to adjust for the light but Iris gives a relieved sigh, pressing her palm tighter against his cheek. Wally leans into it. 

For a moment, everything is almost peaceful. But there’s a tension in the air, a hidden sort of grief, compounding and voiceless. All the words he wants to say to her don’t carry the same weight, that same heartfelt misery that is needed here. 

_ I’ve missed you.  _

“I am so, so proud of you,” Iris rasps crookedly. “Because--because okay, I’m not stupid, alright, I’m not. I’m not. And I know, I-I--know that no amount of prayer or medicine is going to help save your life now baby.” Her voice shakes, watery and weepy. She seems reluctant to go on, but her eyes get brighter and brighter the more she waits, lingering in this desperate moment in time. 

She whispers, “it won’t help you. I--they told me to prepare for a body when we found you, and I didn’t want to but I did anyway, cuz I ain’t that hopeful of a person, really I’m not. I’m not like Barry, I can’t hold on for that long. So I did and I grieved you and I just didn’t expect to find you alive. Dyin’ right in front of me.” 

“I figured I was going to say this all at your grave, but, here you are and--lord, I don’t want you gone. I love you, so so much, and I can’t let you die without you knowing it. You have to know I love you, okay?”

“Okay,” Wally whispers. It hurts to say. There’s a hole in his stomach and it hurts. Hurts and hurts and hurts.  _ I’m not going to die, not really, but I don’t know how to tell you that.  _ “I love you too.”

Iris’s hand smooths down his hair. She’s crying. “And,” she continues. “God, okay, I guess I’m going to spill my guts here--”

“Was that a pun?” Wally slurs. “I mean, uh, nevermind--”

Iris laughs. “I didn’t think of it when I was saying it, but yeah, yeah, I guess it was. I think I’ve just been spending too much time around your dad.”

Wally blinks. “My...dad?” 

“Your dad. Barry.” She breathes in. “He--I--you’re practically our son. No use denying it now. We loved you like one, cared for you like you were our own kid and I…”

“Once...” she whispers, and it’s low and slow and twining lovingly on the consonants, fervent in it’s ease. “One time Barry told me that he wished you were ours. And I never forgot that, couldn’t, because I wanted the same thing too. And I think you did-- _ do _ , too.” 

There’s blood in his throat. He can’t say anything, can’t even seem to nod his head. Instead, he takes a shaking hand and places it over hers. It smears blood all over her but she doesn’t seem to mind, only gives him a beaming, gap-toothed smile. 

“I love you. And I hope, I hope that wherever you end up next will treat you well. I can’t imagine it won’t.”

Leaning forward, she presses a gentle kiss on his head. Everything is still and silent and warm. He wants to rest for a while. He wants something that he can’t quite name, non-sensible syllables teasing themselves on the tip of his tongue. He wishes that she doesn't have to see him like this. 

And it all feels almost like a memory. 

She whispers, “I’ve kept you long enough. You can go to sleep now.”

And so, Wally closes his eyes.

* * *

He doesn’t get the chance to do anything else before the universe has once more flipped, rearranged itself into something unrecognizable. Vertigo has him stumbling onto the ground with a sickening thump, his legs weak and weightless. Bile rises up in his throat. That last universe...

Well. It's not something he's going to be forgetting anytime soon. 

With a creaking groan, he lifts his upper half off the ground, one arm straight as the other comes up to cup his mouth, nails digging into the side of his cheek. The room he’s in is already dark but it’s too much for him to keep his eyes open, too much sensation and smell and sight to handle. 

His entire body is wrung and quivering into itself. 

Wally, pathetically, weakly, wishes he was back with Barry. With Iris. Because even though he’s grown now, his own man in all the ways that hurt and ache sometimes, he doesn’t want to go through this all alone. He has to, he knows, but...

God, he just wants that simple reassurance again. He feels like a little kid; laid out on the floor and trying not to sob as it stormed above him, missing the comforting ease of before. He wants to rest for a while, he wants to go home, he wants to do anything but this. 

Wally lies like that for a while. It’s only when his legs start to strain from how they’re twisted together that he heaves a breath and unhands his mouth, shoving his elbows into the floor to seat himself upright. He’ll have time to wallow about this all later. 

In the process, the back of his head hits something. 

“Jesus f _ u _ ck,” he curses, eyes shutting closed once more as the stinging pain jabs all the way across this head. “That hurt...shit, where am I...?”

With a scowl, he blinks away the spots in his vision. Slowly, his eyes adjust; helped along by an open window that’s letting in a stream of rusted streetlight into the barren room. 

The place he’s in has seen better days. The walls are popcorned and colored in a god-awful shade of cream, scabbed over and weathered with age. On the ceiling, he can but barely see the outline of a crudely painted cloud, a sun with a shaky smiley face drawn onto it, holding out a red heart in its spindly, outstretched arms. 

Wally blinks. His gaze drops to look across from himself. There’s a chair in the corner, an open children’s book perched on its arm. A table with a camera on it, a stuffed doll of the Flash propped next to it. 

Huh. He’s in a nursery. Where… 

A soft whimper behind him draws his head. Through the dim and feeble light, through the bars of a flower-painted crib, there’s a baby. Their face is screwed up and pinched, hands balled up into delicate little fists. Besides them, their twin’s head is facing Wally, peaceful in deep sleep; waspish wisps of black hair peppering their forehead. 

At the sight, he sucks in a gasp. Memories come back to him in a swift rush and all of a sudden he’s tearing up, staring incomprehensibly, still and unbelieving. The baby, the one closest to him, shuffles uneasily--shifting their arm up; up to brush against the wooden bars, their tiny noises starting to get louder. 

Wally shuffles closer. Tentatively, he brings his arm up, letting his hand through the bar to hover over their own. With only a brief moment of hesitation, he goes to hold their hand in his. It’s small, dainty, squirming slightly. It tightens its grip on his fingers. 

“I named you Iris,” he whispers. It comes out from him without permission, and even to his own ears, he sounds shocked and awed, a verge away from tears. “I--oh my god, how could I ever forget about you?”

Iris--Irey--sniffles. Warmth unfolds in his chest, and it’s love, of course it is, it’s love as potent as the type he feels for all of his family, and it’s the most familiar and easy thing in the world, to realize it, to feel it. Welcome it without reservation. 

It’s like coming home. He doesn’t even realize he’s started crying, looking at the faces of his children, until he feels something wet trailing down his cheeks, burning at the place where he’d dug his nails in. His eyes hurt--he’s been crying a lot lately--but these are happy tears. It only hurts a little. 

And, that’s Jai, that’s his son over there. He’s cuddled close to his sister’s side, chest falling and rising in untroubled dreams. Right here, sitting on the cold floor with his shoulders pressing awkwardly against the crib to keep as close as possible, it’s almost impossible to remember that he’d ever forgotten about his twins in the first place. 

Time travel is a bitch like that. 

“I love you,” Wally says aloud. Irey huffs. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s really corny. I’m a dad, I can do that now. But at the very least I’m not making puns like Barry would’ve. You guys already have that much going for you.”

He sniffles. “But I do, you know. I love you; so, so much. Like, I’m literally crying right now over how much I love you. And, I--” He swallows shakily, mouth drying up. “I just want this moment to last longer than the universe will give me time for.”

It’s silent. He doesn’t get a reply, or an answer, or any semblance of closure. He didn’t expect one. He thinks he understands a little bit better how Iris must've felt in the last timeline now. 

Faintly, distantly, he can hear cars go by, the whispered conversation of passersby, the swaying of leaves brushing against the window. Normal, everyday things. 

For a brief moment, he can pretend that there’s no rising disaster, no sense of danger hunting him down on the horizon. That for once, he can rest without worry. 

After a while, Wally opens his mouth to speak again. His tone is soft and quiet. 

“In the future, you’re going to grow up,” he whispers. “And I don’t know how you’ll turn out or what it’ll look like for you in that future. But what I do know, is that I’ll always be there with you. Any version of me would do the same.”

He bumps the side of his head against the crib, mumbling his words now. “Because, you know, I don’t like to talk about it much, but my own dad--he wasn’t the best. Most of the time, he didn’t really care about me, and when he did it was always about my grades or what type of job I was going to get. He never asked about me. He yelled, he hit me, he told me things I’ll never repeat aloud.”

“My mom--my mom told me that I’d understand when I was older. That he loved me, really, and that age changes your perspective on that kind of thing. But it didn’t. And I think I’m terrified, more than terrified actually, of waking up one day and realizing that I’ve grown up to become him.” 

Jai turns his head, his mouth opening slightly. Wally smiles. “But,” he says gently, “I’ll try my best not to turn out like that. I promise. Barry and Iris--well, they’re my parents, in the only way that actually matters, and if I can be even half of what they were to me to you two, then I know that it’ll be okay.”

He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got left with you here, in this timeline. Time travel...time travel is difficult. No one can really control that kind of stuff. And I don’t know a lot of things, actually. But just…”

Wally squeezes Irey’s hand. The room is dark, but there’s a sliver of light softly carding in, just enough to see. Wally thinks he wouldn’t mind staying here forever, just for a bit. 

He doesn’t want to run. For now, the timeline can wait. He wonders if this is how his parents felt, not all that long ago, holding him tight to themselves and trying not to think of what was going to happen next. 

He thinks that it might’ve been. 

“In the future, I can’t wait to see you two grow up. I know you’ll do me proud.”

* * *

Ironically enough, he’s on the bridge again. His legs are swung over the side, and he’s leaning against the railing, eyes bright on a vantage point far off from where he’s sitting. His cowl is laid bunched up on the back of his neck. 

Besides him, Bart’s lying down on the pathway, hair fluffed up in disarray and the ends of it sopping wet and dripping on the wood. He’s got dirt smudged on the white part of his costume, and his fingers are fidgeting with an empty burger wrapper. There’s a strip of sauce on his sauce, and Wally doesn’t mention it to him. 

It’s kind of funny, after all. 

Absentmindedly, Wally wonders what the universe’s obsession with this bridge is. It’s all good and dandy, sure, but there are only so many times he can look out towards the setting sun before it starts getting old. You know how the saying goes: once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, and three times is enemy action. 

Not that Bart’s going to start punching him or anything like that. He’s a good kid, albeit very fucking annoying, and most of the time they get along fine. He’s kind of like the little brother he’s never wanted. 

Though, Wally thinks wanly, he’s pretty sure that Bart would rather bite off his own tongue than admit that he’s actually  _ fond  _ of him. The thought doesn’t bother him all that much. Bart’s clingy enough that Wally knows he loves him even without words. 

In the distance, the sun is rising, golden and red in the morning, turning his costume into a bright and cheery red. Wally watches it hang with a distant expression, laying his head down on his folded arms. His fingers drum a tune on his bicep and he recalls, faintly, a similar scene to this that had happened not so long ago. 

He smiles. 

“What do you want to be when you’re older?” Wally asks. Below them, the river is flowing, loud and echoing in his ears. 

Bart looks up, angling his chin onto his chest. With a yawning stretch of his arms, he folds his hands underneath his neck, kicking his feet up to rest on the railing. A strand of hair falls into his eye and he puffs up his cheeks and blows it out of the way, rolling his eyes. 

“Ugh, I don’t know,” he gripes. “Can’t I just get money by existing? That’d be cool.”

“Well,” Wally leads. “You already exist. So I don’t think that career path is working out all that well for you.” 

Bart scowls up at him and Wally snorts. He picks up a soggy french fry from his side of the fast-food pile and pokes it against the sauce on Bart’s cheek. The scowl deepens. 

“Oh come on, I was just joking,” Wally says. He tosses the french fry towards Bart, who moves his head to catch it in his mouth and swallows it down. The sullen expression stays in place, however. “Seriously, there’s gotta be something. What are your passions?”

“Why do you want to know anyway?” Bart mumbles. “Maybe I’ll just be a sugar baby, how’s that for a future career?” 

“Sure kid, you do you,” Wally nudges Bart’s leg with his own. “But  _ maybe _ , I want to have a nice conversation with you, doofus. D'ya think of that?” He nudges his leg again, purposefully being irritating. Bart kicks his foot out to land in Wally’s lap, smushing his bony ankle into his thigh. 

He’s smiling slightly, though. 

“I told you, I don’t know,” Bart says. “But I guess if I had to choose, it would be something fun to do. And--” here, he wrinkles his nose, “-- _ not  _ an office job. I think I’d rather die.”

Wally places both his hands on Bart’s ankle, tapping a rhythm that has Bart squirming away from him. “No dying,” he says sternly. “What do you think of...writing?”

“Like a journalist?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. You could write children’s books.”

“Ew. Pass. Zoologist?”

“I’m pretty sure zoologists spend like, half their time doing nothing but watching animals poop.”

Bart wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. Well, I don’t have any other ideas.”

“Camp counselor.”

“ _ Wally, _ ” he whines. He bites his bottom lip. “I’ll just be like Max. He doesn’t have a job.”

“Lucky man.” Wally pats Bart’s ankle. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. You’re only sixteen.”

Bart blinks. His face screws up and a furrow punctures his forehead, looking almost concerned as he sits up and faces him. “Wally, I’m fourteen. You know this.” He narrows his eyes. “Did the Weather Wizard hit you on the head during the fight or something? I didn’t think you were  _ that  _ bad at dodging.”

“What...?” Wally thinks back. His memories are all crowded together, meshed up and tangled from conflicting timelines and impressions. Sixteen, sixteen...oh. 

That was in the original timeline. 

Not this one. 

“Seriously, are you okay?” Bart asks. With a shuffle closer, he presses their legs together, leaning his weight slightly onto Wally’s arms. “I’ll only make fun of you a little if you go to the hospital. Promise.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Wally shakes his head. “Must have gotten confused for a sec, nothing to worry about.”

Bart huffs against him. “Sure there isn’t,” he says dubiously. “I’m telling Gramps about this.  _ And  _ Grandma.”

“Tattle-tale. See if I ever tell you any gossip again.”

“You don’t tell me any gossip anyway.” Bart kicks his thigh, and then rolls up to stand on his feet. “Now come on! I want to go running--there’s this new place I saw last time I was in Madrid and it looks really really good so--”

“--Okay okay, I’m going, I’m going.”

Wally stands up with a hand on his knee pushing him up. As he stretches his arms over his head, the sun is warm on his back, weighty and heavy. 

Wally feels a pulse of guilt. This is a perfect opportunity for him to set the timeline back straight, given that he has no fatal injuries or impossible-to-leave scenarios nipping at his heels. Still, it doesn’t feel right to leave Bart behind with no prior notice. Just the thought hurts more than it should considering that it won’t even matter in the end. 

He tries not to think about it too hard. 

Wally blinks when Bart waves a hand in his face. He’s frowning up at him. “Geeze, don’t do that. You were just staring into space like a zombie. It was really creepy.” 

“Sorry,” Wally’s voice cracks. Ugh. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh-huh.” With another side-glance, Bart shoves an elbow into his ribs. “Are you even up to running? You’re acting weird.”

“Just leftover nerves.” Wally settles into a runner’s stance, forcing a cocky grin on his lips. “What, are you stalling for time?”

_ Jesus, Barry’s rubbing off on me. These puns are getting worse and worse _ .

Bart’s still frowning at him, eyes darting across every part of his face. Still, he doesn’t say anything else. The next second, they’re bounding off, racing past trees and hills and entire forests in the time it would take anyone else to blink. 

Wally can feel the Speedforce gripping him. It holds him tight and luring, blue lightning biting at his limbs. He’s in a world blurred, in a world black and rainbow and monochrome; jagged, senseless patterns scurrying across the ground and twisting to and fro like snarling snakes. He hears wailing, he hears singing, he hears something loud and mixing and  _ cracking-- _

For the second time in his life, he runs without limitations. His lungs don’t need air, he doesn’t need to be mindful of his strength, he doesn’t need to think. He is pure, undiluted speed, and he runs and he runs and he never wants to stop. 

“Wally!” he hears a voice shout. It’s young; panicked and familiar. Something in his chest hurts. “Come on, what’s wrong with you, why are you--ouch! Did you just shock me?!”

Wally, Wally, Wally--it’s all he can hear. A name that rings and haunts and dies on his throat over and over again. That’s the name of the Flash, he knows. Or at least, a facet of it. 

“Okay, okay, you’re like, fading out, and you can’t hear me so that’s no fucking good--hey dumbass I can’t keep up like this you have to slow down--!”

There’s something ringing in his ears. 

“WALLY!”

That’s a familiar name. 

With a scream, he skids to a halt, and the universe falls into itself, right and right and left again. He sees planets and stars and meteors pass by his eyes and finally, finally, he closes his eyes. 

_ I want to be a hero _ . 

God, he hates time travel. 

* * *

Wally wakes up in his own bed, tangled in the sheets and panting as if he’d just run across the world. With a deafening screech, he falls to the ground in a blur of vibrating limbs. 

“FUCK!” he yells. His neighbor bangs a fist into the wall. Wally moans in pain. 

Right, let’s go through the list: he’s in the correct universe, in the correct body, his memories are more or less coherent...the timeline’s a bit fucked after all of that, but what else is new, really? 

He needs to do so many things. Find his spouse, if he even has one this time around, daydream about Irey and Jai for the rest of time, call Bart, call  _ Iris _ , hell, just talk to his family in general, he’s earned it. 

He stands up, groaning and popping his back. He wonders if any of his friends would be up to getting a massage with him or something like that. He’s sore and miserable all over. With a crack of his jaw, he picks up his phone from the nightstand and dials a number he knows by heart. 

The person on the other line picks up immediately. 

“So,” Wally begins. “Are you still married to Hal in this timeline?”

And over the phone, Barry laughs. 

**Author's Note:**

> how'd i do gang  
> here's my tumblr btw: https://yeolly-yeost.tumblr.com/


End file.
